Florence Gould Theater

Image: Giovanni Battista Gaulli (Il Baciccio), The Adoration of the Lamb (Modello of the apse fresco in Il Gesù, Rome), ca. 1680. Oil on canvas. Museum purchase, Gift of M.H. de Young Endowment Fund.

Image: Camille Pissarro, Snow Scene at Éragny (View of Bazincourt),1884. Oil on canvas. Gift of Mrs. Renée M. Bransten

Image: Master of the Retable of the Reyes Católicos, The Nativity, late 15th century. Oil on pine wood panel. Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

David Stronach is Professor Emeritus, Near Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley, and Co-director, UC Berkeley-Yerevan State University Excavations at Erebuni.

Between April 1976 and May 1978 Georg Gerster, one of the world’s foremost aerial photographers, flew across the length and breadth of Iran to photograph the memorable landscapes, archaeological sites, and historical monuments that characterize this storied land. Most of the photographs have since remained in his files in Switzerland. Recently, David Stronach, working with Gerster and a number of reputed specialists in the art and archaeology of Iran, arranged to have them published. Ancient Iran from the Air provides—from a distinctly novel angle—a fresh appraisal of the greater part of the long history of the built environment in this crucial part of the ancient Near East.